Excursion with a Friend

Today I had a good time exploring with Gosia, a companion I met last night at the English Language Exchange Club.  She wanted to expand my self-imposed boundaries, so we went into Kazimierz, the old Jewish district.  The Old Synagogue was a good place to learn about Jewish culture, and we both learned quite a lot.  I had no idea that the Krakow Jews had their own version of the YMCA.  It was a sports club named after the Maccabees.  It is very nice to have a Polish native with you to ask questions!



By this time, I was hungry, so Gosia showed me the place to get the best zapiekanka in town: the Plac Nowy.  From there, we went to the church of the Corpus Christi, a Gothic-turned-Baroque church that again had amazing guilded altars and lofty ceilings.  Churches back home are going to look so weird.

I also started the process of fixing my passport at the U.S. Consulate today.  I was late to the appointment I had made on the website last night, because Gosia and I were farther from the city center than I had thought, but that didn't seem to matter.  After I went through security, I was just another number in the line (which thankfully was very short).  I was told that my passport was too old to be just amended to my new name; I had to get a whole new one.  If that's what it takes, that's what I'm doing.  The only thing I was missing for my application was a photo.  The consulate employees directed me outside and across the street.  There, I found a small-business photographer who makes a killing on all the travelers who need a passport photo.  (I should mention here that the street has quite a few consulate offices, including France and Germany.)  So, after about ten minutes and $9, I scurried back across the street to the consulate.  I was promised a new passport in ten days.  Deal.

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Puffer Gets Brave

Things got a little busy yesterday, and we never made a post, so I'm catching it up today.  Readers might get two posts today for bonus!  My exploration of Krakow continued yesterday.  Before I went out to explore, I did some research on places I would like to see in my remaining time here.  I decided to begin the day with the old Town Hall Clock Tower.  It amazes me still that every building I go to see has centuries of rich history.  The Clock Tower has been around in one form or another since at least the 1400s.  It was at one time part of a larger building where the Krakow municipal authorities met.  It's a long way to get to the top, and you have to deal with scary dark, steep, narrow steps:

It also has several other rooms on the way to the top floor, which is right under the clock face.  Puffer of course came along to explore too.

After I left the tower, I saw one of the costumed Hussars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winged_hussar) in the square, and a brilliant idea struck me.  The result is the photo below.

He asked me to email him the photo and gave me his email address.

I had lunch in a little sandwich and coffee cafe tucked away from the main streets, and then I continued to the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul.  When I went in, the curators in the church handed me an audioguide in English, which was helpful but corny.  The inside of the church is decked out in Baroque style, part of the Counter Reformation effort to distinguish Catholicism as above Protestantism, I think.  There was also a crypt under the altar area where Skarga, a very important priest and royal advisor, was buried.

I spent the rest of the afternoon browsing my way around nearly the entire perimeter of the Planty.  I felt like I needed to orient myself as to what part of the Planty corresponded with which side of the Old Town and the Rynek Glowny.  It was a great day to be outside, but it was a lot of walking!

In the evening, Andy took me to the English meeting of the Language Exchange Club.  I tried a grapefruit beer and met some neat people.  In fact, I'm meeting one of those people soon today.  She needs to practice her English more, and I need someone to hang out with.

That's all for now.  Look for more later!

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Back to Kraków

Today we forced an early (well, earlier) wake-up time in order to make re-entry into the normal work-week schedule a little easier.  I don't care if Salamanca and Kraków have the same time on the clocks; they're in different time zones.

Laurel and I went to Carrefour today and I had my most successful excursion there.  I'm convinced that none of their employees speak English, but at least I'm figuring out more about how the store works.  For example, as I may have mentioned earlier, the customers weigh and print out a label for their fruit in the produce section rather than the cashier entering it at purchase.  I completely missed this nuance my first time through the store, and no one spoke enough English to explain it to me.  I figured out what was going on during my second visit and was able to complete it correctly this time around.  Small victories.

We did have some difficulty identifying stain removal products, but some English-speaking customers were able to help us out there.  Of course we tried asking an employee first, but she did not speak English.  Someone had spilled some detergent in the same aisle, and during our puzzlement at the stain remover, we got to meet the grocery-store-Zamboni-man.  This older gentleman (non-English-speaking, of course), rides around on what can only be described as a Zamboni for tile floors cleaning up whatever is in his way.  The detergent spill was, of course, his highest priority.  As such, he passed by Laurel and I no fewer than four times.  We then met him in several other locations throughout the rest of the store.  It was almost like we were being followed.  Maybe our shoes were dirty or something.  Regardless, I was glad that we had to go down a flight of stairs to leave the mall, as this meant he couldn't follow us outside.

Laurel and I figured out how to get to the cafe on the terrace of the Cloth Hall tonight, and we had wonderful smoothies there.  There had been a rainstorm earlier, and if you look closely in the photo below, you'll see a rainbow slightly right of center:

Later, we had a delicious, traditional Polish dinner.  At least, the food was traditional; the amount of food served at the hour we ate is distinctly American.  Nevertheless, it was very tasty, and Laurel and I will need to eat lighter tomorrow because of it.

Tomorrow I have to return to work, but Laurel gets to continue her adventures.

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Do You Speak Espangolsku?

Today we are traveling back to Poland.  Because it's another day of planes, trains, and autobuses, it's a good time to fill in some of the details of our adventures from yesterday.  We decided to explore the north and west areas of the Old Town this time to see what we could find there.  Old Salamanca is full of churches.  We didn't see any as magnificent as the cathedrals, but the Iglesia del Purisimo (Church of Purity) was noteworthy.  It seemed that other interesting places were inaccessible to tourists, which disappointed us a little.  Instead, we decided to do more souvenir shopping, for which we needed to venture to a different part of town.  Although the typical tourist gift shops are cute, they do not have official team sport merchandise, specifically the Real Madrid football team merchandise.  So we walked quite a ways north to El COrte Ingles, the biggest department store I'd ever seen, where we found what we were looking for.  So Rita, I will leave you in suspense for now as to the rest of the story.

When we made it back to the Old Town, we had a wonderful relaxing lunch from a quiet street cafe.  It felt so good to sit down.  We had done a lot of walking, and we don't always get to eat meals sitting down, especially tapas in Salamanca.  Later in the day, we went out again to meet Megan for tapas, and although the food was delicious, we had to eat it standing at the bar.

Back to siesta time, Andy and I went back to the hotel after lunch and some casual shop browsing.  It was a great time to rest inside, because it also was looking rainy again.  I was looking forward to enjoying the rest of our bottle of sangria out on our patio, but no sooner had we set foot outside, it began to sprinkle.  Drat.  After we waited a bit, though, it stopped, and we finished the last of the bottle in view of the cathedral. Ahh.

We still had to take our umbrellas with us when we left the hotel again.  Before we met Megan, we visited the Archive of the Spanish Civil War.  Although it was interesting to see documents, propaganda, personal letters, and other artifacts, the exhibits were not in any kind of chronological order or organization according to the parties involved.  We did learn that the Freemasons were among those persecuted by the Fascist regime.  There was even a replica Masonic Lodge room you could go into.  It kind of made me wonder whether the Masons would object to having their secret symbols and room layout displayed.  Also, the outfits on the mannequins looked disturbingly like black KKK uniforms...  Anyway, it was somewhat interesting but not extensive enough to warrant more than an hour of exploration.  We moved on to exploring more shops for a bit.  I found I really like the casual, pretty skirts young women tend to wear here, and I was looking for a skirt that I liked.  I never found one that I liked here in Spain, but maybe I'll find something in Poland.

So we met Megan, and she took us to a tapa bar and grill which had a great variety of grilled pork and chicken tapas.  They were served on a slice of baguette bread, with juices dripped on top for flavor.  Yum!  Megan told us that one way to tell a good tapas bar is to see how many napkins are thrown on the floor.  Since most tapas are finger food, bar clientele take napkins to wipe their fingers.  Apparently, the custom is to just throw them on the floor when you're done.  The more napkins on the floor, the better the bar.

Later, we made our way back to the Plaza Mayor, where we sat for drinks and hung out for the rest of the evening.  It was a great night, and we had such a great time in Spain.  We're sad to be leaving today.

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Last Whole Day in Spain

It saddens me to write that today was our last day to explore Salamanca and enjoy all that Spain has to offer.  We ventured a little farther out of the Old Town in search of a specially-requested gift for a classmate back home.

I'd like to leave readers with observations about the Spanish culture.

• Although nearly every native Spaniard smokes, I was grateful to see they do not smoke inside buildings.  They probably have some law like we do in Indiana or Ohio.
• I have never seen so many whole dead animals in one place as I've seen here.  No, I'm not talking about roadkill; these are the markets and meat shops.  Fish, shrimp, and today in the main market, we saw entire piglets.  (Yech!)  To make the yummy fresh sandwiches we've been eating, the Spanish just shave some meat off of a whole pig's leg sitting in the store and put it on fresh bread.  This is how you get jamón ibérico.
• The Spanish like to stay out so late because their time zone is so messed up.  Poland and Spain are on the same time zone, as Andy previously mentioned.  The Spanish think nothing of taking their children--tiny infants up through teenagers--out for dinner around 10 PM or so.  'Tis the way of life.  It also looks like it's about 2 hours earlier than it should; for example, it looks like it's about 7PM when in reality the clock is chiming 9.
• Olives always come with pits still in them.  I know of no graceful way to handle this situation.
• Everyone seems to stop for us at crosswalks.  I don't know if they're just really nice or it's some law on the books that they have to stop.
• You must ask for your bill in almost all restaurants.  If you fail to remember this, they will happily let you sit there all day and maybe all night. 
• Sangria is the national drink.  It's like wine and fruit juice, and it's frequently cheaper than soda.
• There is at least one well-dressed old woman glaring at the tourists in each church.  She's harmless, though.

We leave you with a photo of us and Megan having drinks in the Plaza Mayor.  Puffer joined in, too!  It is a beautiful image to remember a beautiful place.

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A Slower Pace

Another great thing about our hotel room is that it has the best light-blocking blinds ever.  Let's just say we slept in this morning.  It looked like it may have been about 6:30 AM, but when the blinds were opened, it was obvious it was not 6:30 AM.  We were not too late for the breakfast buffet, but based on the picked-over selections, we decided to strike out on our own for breakfast.  We followed the hotel concierge's directions toward a grocery, but ended up finding a nice little panaderia (bakery) where we bought some meat- and cheese-filled pastries.  We then enjoyed these on our balcony when we returned to the hotel.  Note: it's hard to avoid cured meats and cheeses at any meal of the day here, but I found a pastry with chicken instead.

Luckily, since the Spanish do everything later in the day, leaving around noon for the day's explorations did not set us back.  Continuing our tour of Spanish cathedrals, I made sure we made a beeline for the gorgeous Gothic edifice we saw last night.  We actually got two cathedrals for the price of one.  The Gothic cathedral was actually free, but we had to pay for what we found was called the "Old Cathedral:" a second church built in the Romanesque style.  The Gothic cathedral was built in the 1500s, at the very end of the Gothic period, and so also contains Baroque elements.  Overall, it's a stunning blend of simple lines and ornate decorations.

 The Gothic/Baroque nave.

 One arm of the Romanesque cathedral.

 Andy in the cloister of the cathedral museum.

The Romanesque nave.

After touring both cathedrals and their museum, we got some lunch.  This included a little fruit we found in the city's main market, which we got right before they closed for the day.  I was thankful to get a little fresh fruit; it's hard to keep fruits and veggies in a tourist's diet.  I think we'll go back there tomorrow a little earlier in the day. 

We continued exploring, but by this time, many places had closed for siesta.  We did a little souvenir shopping but then returned to the hotel where we did some relaxing of our own.  Eventually, we decided to try out the hotel's pool before we went out again for tapas.  (Did we mention that this hotel also has a pool?) Having a nice pool and patio area is great, but Andy would now like to describe the pool.

Although the Puente Romano is a wonderful facility, I'm thinking it may have a direct connection to Dante's ninth level of hell via the pool vent.  As you certainly recall from your literature classes, the ninth and final level of the inferno was a giant sheet of ice.  That's the only way I can figure the pool got this cold.  However, once my darling wife gets an idea for fun activities in her head, nothing her will stop her, including hypothermia.  Thus, we submersed ourselves into what I can only assume is a Polar Bear Dive training run.  At least we'll be prepared if we ever do one of those. /end rant

(It took Andy much longer to get into the pool than it took me.  I actually did a little bit of real swimming; it was the only thing that would keep me warm.  Afterward, I felt really good, though!)

After we were dried and warmed up, we ventured out again for tapas.  Both places we went were recommendations of Megan's, and after we tasted their delicous selections, we would recommend them too.  Unfortunately, it started to rain and then storm while we finished our second round.  This cut our evening outing short, and we had to restrict our movement to the colonnades of the Plaza Mayor until it let up enough for us to make it back to the hotel.  As I write this, it is still thundering.  Overall, I'm glad to have had a more relaxing day.

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Media thus far

Hi there, faithful reader!  Laurel and I have decided to divide and conquer on today's blog post.  My job, in celebration of hotel internet access, is to post various photos and videos taken thus far in our Spanish excursion.  Most of these sites will be described in the preceding entries.

Apologies for the delay, but I think uploading all of these last night broke the hotel wifi.  We decided to go to sleep instead, and the wifi is cooperating much better now.

Austerity protest in Madrid:

Plaza Mayor in Madrid

Palacio Real in Madrid

Tapas in Barcelona

  
Sangria!

Puffer at the beach in Barcelona

Cathedral in Barcelona

Plaza Mayor in Barcelona

City market in Barcelona:

The Sagrada Familia Cathedral.  More pictures because it's awesome.

Mediterranean beach time at Barcelona

Austerity protests in Barcelona

Laurel (and Puffer, in the last picture) riding a lion at the Mirador de Colón monument

Random Barcelona statue with some guy in it

Our patio in Salamanca

Plaza Mayor in Salamanca, lit up at night

Cathedral at Salamanca

Night view from our patio.  It looks small, but we have a really good view of the cathedral.

A couple of videos, too.  One looking around the Barcelona Cathedral, and the other of a band playing at the Plaza Mayor in Salamanca.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJCrpubOVCM&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfShLyZXZxU&feature=youtu.be

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